A Prayer for the Living

Posted by Mike Finnegan
on
September 12, 2016

Opening 29 years ago
yesterday on a date that would later become explosively fused with the tragic
specter of global terrorism, A Prayer for the Dying (1987) was an
ambitious attempt, based on a novel by prolific best-selling espionage novelist
Jack Higgins (The Eagle Has Landed, Eye
of the Storm) to depict the crisis of conscience in the soul of a
guilt-ridden loner who kills so-called strategic military targets for a cause
but draws the line at the taking of innocent lives. Irish Republican Army
assassin Martin Fallon (Mickey Rourke) has crossed that line: the latest bomb
strike he and partner Liam Docherty (Liam Neeson) intended for a British Army
caravan instead blew up a school bus that turns up unexpectedly. The tragedy
leaves a sorrow he cannot shake, a self-condemnation for which he sees no path
to absolution, and a determination to leave his past behind. He is offered a
chance to escape: if he will execute one final hit at the behest of a crime
kingpin Jack Meehan (Alan Bates), he’ll get a rich payoff and passage to the
U.S. Reluctantly taking on the job, Fallon dispatches the target but encounters
one last hurdle: the killing has been witnessed by a priest (Bob Hoskins), whom
Meehan insists must also now be taken out or there will be no payout or
freedom. Movie explorations of the mind of a killer are manifold, but director
Mike Hodges (Get Carter, Croupier, I’ll
Sleep When I’m Dead) and star Rourke, whose outlier screen persona made The Pope of Greenwich Village, Angel Heart,
Barfly and later The Wrestler connect
with audiences, mine deeper territory here in the film’s milieu of Protestant
vs. Catholic Ireland. Primarily a suspense tale, it also powerfully explores
the capacity for good in those bearing the mark of Cain as well as the
potential for righteous violence to erupt inside the intrinsically noble, as
embodied in soulful Rourke and fervid Hoskins. With anonymous, fevered
terrorist movements so much on the mind in our charged, politicized world, A
Prayer for the Dying, in its specific, personalized storytelling and
thriller format, deftly and searchingly poses the question of whether
hard-hearted souls can be saved from destructive paths – and whether we all
have the diligence to suppress the darker impulses in our own nature. Like its
conflicted lead character, A Prayer for the Dying had a
troubled production history itself, reflected in interviews with director
Hodges and cinematographer Mike Garfath on Twilight Time’s hi-def Blu-ray, but
its solid performances and simmering tension still provide riveting and
ultimately thoughtful entertainment.